Francis Needham to Walsingham before Sluys, 28 July 1587

Summary. DECODE lists R8479 as a three-page, partially decrypted letter of “Needham” to an unknown recipient, 28 July 1587, with an unknown cipher of graphic signs. The writer is Francis Needham, Walsingham’s servant, who sailed with the Earl of Leicester to relieve Sluys, and the letter is to Walsingham; its clear text follows the despatch of the same day calendared in CSP Foreign 1587 (pp. 206–8), which the Harley leaves are not. The cipher is a pigpen of nine box shapes in three forms (plain, dot below, dot inside) carrying the alphabet a–i, k–s, t–z in order. A contemporary hand glossed a few cipher words and the runs of f. 39r; the six runs of f. 39v were left bare. From the glosses advise, enemyes, campe nor the towne and Burgrave half the alphabet came out, the first bare lines gave “want of intelligence” and “whether there was any bridge”, and the order of the grids gave the rest. Every run of f. 39v is now deciphered. The besiegers knew nothing of the enemy, did not know whether there was a bridge, and found the channel closed with hoys and flyboats fastened with chains and strengthened behind with flat boats. One word of about six letters is unsure.

01 The letter

Harley MS 287 is a volume of Walsingham’s correspondence (the Cobham letters of 1588 on ff. 70–72 are deciphered in another write-up). Folios 39–40 are one letter: f. 39r opens “It may please your honour. The sudden departure of the bark … before Sluce, was the cause that I was forced to break off”, f. 39v continues, f. 40r ends it with the date 1587, and the address leaf f. 40v is endorsed “28 July 1587. From Needham”.

CSP Foreign vol. 21 pt 3 (1929) calendars Needham’s letter to Walsingham of the same day from Flushing (SP 84/16 f. 216): the council aboard Leicester’s ship before the haven of Sluys, the firework ship that could hardly be brought up to the bridge, the States’ captains who would not lend boats because “this commission must come from the States”, and the fall of the town. The Harley letter tells the same story in more words; the calendar does not list it. A note in the same volume (p. 237) says Needham wrote to Walsingham in the cipher of Thomas Wilkes, whose key is at the front of BL Add MS 5935 (p. 35 n. 4). That manuscript is not online and was not used here.

02 The cipher

Nine box shapes, each written plain, with a dot beneath, or with a dot inside its angle. Taken in order, the shapes carry the alphabet straight through three grids:

shape	plain	dot below	dot inside
⌟	a	k	t
⊔	b	l	u, v
⌞	c	m	w
⊏	d	n	x
□	e	o	y
⌜	f	p	z
⊓	g	q	—
⌝	h	r	—
⊐	i	s	—

Words are divided and spelled as in the clear text (wyth, chaynes, bootes). No homophones, nulls or code names occur on f. 39v. The dots are the whole difficulty: a dot below sits under the lower left of its sign, the script slants to the right, and a dot inside ⌟ lies in its upper left, so the first transcription gave several t’s as k’s until the grid order showed the error.

Harley MS 287 f. 39v, the glossed words campe nor the towne and the line of cipher beneath — f. 39v: “campe nor the towne” glossed above its signs; beneath, the bare line *whether there was any bridge or not, or whether there were any at the chanel*. Image: British Library, Harley MS 287 f. 39v, via DECODE R8479 (image 4).

03 The decipherment of f. 39v

Cipher in italics; clear words around it paraphrased where the clear text was not transcribed in full.

“… we had want of intelligence these five days last past … [no] advise out of the enemyes campe nor the towne” (the last four words glossed at the time).
“and we were so far from knowing what was meet to be done at that time [that] we knewe not whether there was any bridge or not, or whether there were any at the chanel.”
“… being above 100 of their files into the town walls, and that the chanel was b[…]ed with hoyes and flyboates fastened wyth chaynes, strengthned behind wyth flatt bootes.”

Harley MS 287 f. 39v, three lines of pigpen cipher describing the boom across the channel — f. 39v: “… into the towne walls. *and that the chanel was b[…]ed with hoyes and flyboates fastened wyth chaynes, strengthned behind wyth flatt bootes*.” Image: British Library, Harley MS 287 f. 39v, via DECODE R8479 (image 4).

This is the “bridge” of the calendared despatch: Parma had closed the haven of Sluys with a boom of boats chained together, and the English and Dutch could neither see it nor learn what it was. The rest of f. 39v, in clear, covers Sir Roger Williams’s sallies, the storm, the state of the town, Count Maurice, Colonel Morgan and Sir William Russell; the three words glossed near its foot (“Mr Burley”, “the Spaniard”, “were removed hence”) were deciphered at the time.

04 Method

The four images were fetched from DECODE. The glossed words gave letters by alignment: advise = ⌟ ⊏ ⊔: ⊐ ⊐̣ □, enemyes = □ ⊏̣ □ ⌞̣ □: □ ⊐̣, the towne = ⌟: ⌝ □ ⌟: □̣ ⌞: ⊏̣ □, and Burgrave on f. 40r began ⊔ ⊔̣ ⌝̣ ⊓. The first bare line then gave want of intelligence, and once a, b, c, d, e, h, i and k–s, t–z were in hand the order was plainly alphabetical, which fixed f, g, p and q and corrected the mistranscribed dots. A solver (simulated annealing on quadgram statistics) was prepared in case the key could not be completed, and was not needed. The transcription is in needham1587/cipher.txt and the key in decode.py.

05 What remains uncertain

Line G, the verb after “the chanel was”: ⊔ then four cramped signs (one blotted), then □ ⊏, so b ···· ed. Sense: closed or blocked. Grade M.
All other cipher words: grade H (every sign decrypted with the key; they spell English in the letter’s own spelling).
The key has not been checked against the Wilkes key in Add MS 5935.
The clear text of ff. 39r–40r is summarised, not transcribed.

06 Sources

British Library, Harley MS 287 ff. 39–40: DECODE R8479, images 1–4 (4 = f. 39v).
Calendar of State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, vol. 21 pt 3, April–December 1587, ed. S. C. Lomas and A. B. Hinds (1929): Needham to Walsingham, 28 July 1587, pp. 206–8; the Wilkes cipher, p. 35 n. 4 and p. 237 n.; British History Online.

Transcription, key and notes: needham1587/ in the repository.